the
boisi center
interviews
no. 53: March 23 , 2011
hauwa ibrahim is a visiting lecturer on women’s studies and Islamic law at Harvard Divin-
ity School and a lawyer known for defending women under sentence by Shariah law courts in northern
Nigeria. She spoke with Boisi Center associate director Erik Owens after her presentation on the legal
and religious status of women in Nigerian society at the Boisi Center.
owens: What do you see as the broad
challenges that women in Nigeria face
today?
ibrahim: Electricity. In the north,
anyway. To say women may be too broad;
you have to put them in categories. In
the cities, they will tell you, “Forget it.
We have electricity already, so that’s not
our problem.” But the bulk of the women
are in the villages. About 80 percent of
the population of northern Nigeria lives
in villages, and that is my focus; not the
20 percent that is cosmopolitan, living in
towns and cities.
And I think they need education. Education itself is freedom. They want to have
the basic necessities of life. They want to
have a roof over their head, they want to
be able to feed their family. This is what I
see, and I’m talking to you from a grassroots perspective— when I was growing
up, and even now, this is what I see. They
would just want the basic things in life: a
roof, food, shelter. They don’t want to go
anywhere on vacation. That is not what
they care about. They don’t want cars;
there is no road for them to use a car.
They are contented with just the basics.
owens: To what extent has the religious
conflict that’s simmered around many of
the states in the north affected women in
a particular way as opposed to men?
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ibrahim: Well, in these conflicts usually it is the men that get involved and a
lot of them die. That leaves a woman with
children, and so the burden of a family
that is possibly shared becomes one person’s thing. Things are changing a little
bit. One of the advantages of Shariah is
the United Nations Development Project.
Most of these women that I interviewed
in 230 local governments in 19 states of
the north, maybe about 80 percent of
them had a blood pressure issue. So the
greed of a family puts the woman’s health
on the line. Whereas under Shariah,
you must leave some of the husband’s
property for her, and this is one of the
advantages.
But otherwise, generally speaking, my
sense of it is that religious challenges
have affected women in a negative way,
especially when it comes to children. If
they have children, it is not easy to raise
them. And one of the most important
things for a women in the north, when
you are of age—and age is 12 years old—
is that you cannot be in your parents’
home, you have to be in your husband’s
house. So it’s becoming more difficult
and so they suffer a lot of internal violence and deprivation, because of those
religious issues.
the woman’s inheritance. In Islamic Shariah, a woman gets a certain percentage
of her husband’s property, as provided
for in the Qu’ran. In the non-Shariah
cultures, the brother or some mere relation of the family will come and take the
children with him, and also take all the
late husband’s property. And so you leave
her with nothing, and often health issues
are at stake as well. I did some work with
the boisi center interview: hauwa ibrahim
Religious conflict also makes women
very timid, which reflects itself in their
way of life. So they have come back
to sort of a cocoon, and the man still
dictates—dictates not only the law, but
dictates to control. With the war and the
religious challenges, with the coming of
Shariah, one thing I’ve noticed—and this
is even in my family—is that the women
have now put back on the veil, even much
more than it used to be. And I think they
are not only covering their body, they are
also covering their heart, which is for
me the most dangerous thing. Because
then, whatever we have, whatever we are
trying to fight for, we are just going one
step forward, two steps backward, which
is a shame. And this is what I noticed
since the introduction of Shariah, about
11 years ago now.
owens: I read that President Jonathan
promised to give over a third of positions in government ministries, as well
as cabinet positions, to women, if he
were re-elected. How do you view that
statement, and will this only affect the
educated urban women that you spoke
of, that other 20 percent? Or will this
promise have any impact on the bulk of
the women that you’re dealing with in
northern Nigeria?
ibrahim: The People’s Democratic Party (PDP), the party of Jonathan, had it in
its own manifesto a 30 percent affirmative action provision for women, meaning
that every position—whether elected,
whether it’s in the local grassroots or in
the presidency, should allocate 30 percent
of positions to women. Does it happen in
real life? Not really. Now, we are talking
about letters on a piece of paper. When
you actually try to put it in practice in the
north, it may not happen that way, because the women are not even exposed to
this idea or they don’t even know it exists.
And would their husbands allow them to
take the position? And when you are not
married, you are considered not responsible enough, so it’s all a vicious cycle. So
in the north it’s not so relevant, and those
ones that do get the tactical position are
likely to be suggested for it because they
are capable of being controlled; certain
women are handpicked so that a man
will really be in control. So that is the
issue with the 30 percent rule, although I
think Jonathan may have had a good will
to do that. During the rule of the former
president, Obasanjo, he gave positions to
women, but some of the stories that we’ve
heard are that he went after those ones
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that were close to him. No man would
want to have his wife with the president.
That’s reckless. It’s an open thing. So
from the north, the men are not too open
to having us participate because they
think there is something defective in the
system.
owens: You mentioned the supremacy
of law in your talk, and I know that a lot
of people that I’ve talked with about this
question find it very complicated to understand how you can navigate so many
“One thing I’ve
noticed is that
the women have
now put back the
veil, even much
more than it
used to be. And
I think they are
not only covering
their body, they
are covering their
hear t .”
layers of law and custom in the practice
that you do. You mentioned focusing on
a particular type of Shariah, but do you
also appeal to the range of other tribal
customs and federal law and international law? How do you manage that?
ibrahim: When we speak about management, we are speaking about a system, a law. When you are charged under
a law, we defend you based on that law.
When I spoke about needing to have the
mind of the people in the public, it’s not
the law, it’s more of the strategy. The law
can only be so effective, and its effective-
the boisi center interview: hauwa ibrahim
ness will stop at a point. If you remember, there was a Somali woman that was
stoned to death by her village in October
2009, after the court freed her. So what
we’re trying to do is beyond protecting
them in court, it’s that we should be able
to insure that they get back safely. And to
do that, we have to work with the people
in the village. I’ll give you an example of
how we did this in Amina’s case.
In the court at Funtua, when we lost the
first appeal, I remember that after every
single statement the judge would make,
everybody would shout praises to Allah,
and we really felt threatened in court.
That was the day of the judgment. It
really felt tragic. If you look at the court
footage you will see Amina hanging on
to me tight, I’m hanging on to her tight,
and thinking that maybe if they will
stone her, they will stone me first! But
let me tell you two or three things that
happened.
One thing to note is that even aside from
the gentlemen in Funtua, the people that
come to court are mainly men, maybe
99.9 percent are men. There was no
single woman among the spectators in
the court in the case of Amina. And who
are the spectators? They are beggars, they
are blind people, they are lepers. They go
to beg every day. Do you know they are
the most powerful people in society? The
most powerful. Why are they powerful?
Because they know what is happening in
each home. So, I realized that they have
power.
One day after the court’s session, they
were outside on the grass. I removed my
gown and I went and knelt down to greet
them. They were afraid at first—why
am I, a lawyer, coming to kneel down to
greet them? So I said, “no, I just want to
say hello and to thank you so much for
allowing us to come to court.” Of course,
they are people against us, we know
that, so I just thanked them for allowing
us to come, and I said if there was any
other advice that they wanted to give us,
we are open to it. We don’t want to hurt
anybody’s feelings, we just want them to
know that we just want to help, because
these are our family members.
So I spoke to them and they couldn’t
believe for some time that I had come to
them. Before I left they prayed with me
because I asked them for their prayer.
I personally asked them if they’d come
pray, and they asked why they should
pray for me. I told them, “The prayer
of a good heart always affects someone
certain that is doomed”; this is true, but
it’s also tactical. It’s a blessing and they’ll
feel guilt if anything should happen. So,
they prayed with me, and I thanked them
and I left. I also gave them a business
card—they cannot read, but I said this is
my business card, my name is Hauwa.
Now there was the chief of the Hisbah in
Kurami, which was Amina’s village, who
was so difficult to be able to track down.
He was one of the people inciting people
to violence. It wasn’t an organized thing,
it was just clusters of young men and
boys, ages 15 to 20, who will just kill you.
They know where I live. After this, I left
for Abuja.
I was in Abuja one day and a motor-taxi
came to the office. I was sitting in my
office and that business card came back
to me. And they say that the people I gave
the business card to had asked for me
through the taxi driver (because there is
no telephone in the village, there’s no way
to communicate). So they had gone to the
motor park where people come into Abuja
and they gave them lots of money, to say,
this is her, this is her address, go on and
phone someone and tell her to come the
following day. There’s something very
important happening. It was a Wednesday, and they wanted me to be there on
a Thursday, and it’s about six or seven
hours away from where I was.
And for them to send for me, to say I
need to be there, I knew it must have
been very important. I got my driver,
Muhammed, we set out very early in the
morning and I arrived running. Looked
for them. Small village, it’s easy to find
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them. They are beggars, and they’re all
out on the road, begging. And they said
to me, “The chief of the hisbah’s wife
just had a baby, and today’s the naming
ceremony.” It’s very important, where I
come from, the naming ceremony. And
for me to show my face—you don’t even
invite people to it, you know, it’s open.
They wanted me to be there.
That is how they got me there. I wait, just
like any other woman will do, remove my
nice clothes, got a traditional dress on,
tied it, went into the kitchen, knelt down,
started blowing the fire with my mouth.
I was just like any other person there.
I came down to the rest of the group to
talk, and became like all of them. And
at one point, I was greeting someone,
who said, “who are you?” I said, “Miss
Hauwa.” And somebody said, “Oh, I have
seen you! Yeah, you’re the one I saw on
the TV.” So they were saying how this is
the lawyer! Not many people there have
TV. The one that had seen me on TV was
from a different town. So she mentioned
the name Amina Lawal. Now everyone
knows her because they all listen to the
radio. So I greeted her, and she asked
what we were doing in court. She doesn’t
know anything about it, you know—the
wife of the chief. So I told her what we
were doing, in the simplest way I could
approach it. So she said, maybe I should
go to my husband and explain to him.
the boisi center interview: hauwa ibrahim
This is a man we couldn’t see for more
than one year. Who got me to see him?
The beggars. You can see the story? You
can see how powerful they are? Often we
take people and local society not to be
useful in these cases, but they could be
the most powerful tools we have. I could
continue with stories on and on, but the
point I’m making is that in any given society we do have a way to approach issues
or to solve problems. We don’t need to
look too far. We just have to have the insight and the intuition to run with what
is there. I have found that on the field to
be useful. Use your intuition. Don’t bury
it. If you feel it, use it.
owens: What’s the role of outsiders,
who might be here at Boston College or
across the river at Harvard, who feel an
obligation and a sense of responsibility or
empathy to the women that you’re seeking to protect? What’s the role, especially,
of non-Africans and Westerners toward
these cases, in terms of ideas of human
rights or financing or NGOs or movements or anything? I’m interested in
what the outsider can bring to this.
ibrahim: We benefited immensely
from Lawyers Without Borders. This is
an international NGO. Their presence
in court gave us legitimacy toward what
we were doing. It’s a huge difference
to see people that don’t look like you in
court. People say, “ah, if we do something
wrong, people are taking note.” So there’s
a legitimacy that they give us, and I think
it’s helpful that they are there as professionals. They also brought us international legal instruments. Before that I
never knew, for example, that Nigeria has
signed human rights documentation.
I think on a bigger, broader picture, they
brought to us resources from the international community to support local people
in the field. Lawyers Without Borders
brought to us a new way of thinking. It is
a perfect example of thinking global and
acting local. So, for example, we take the
issue of fair trial. OK, how did they argue
a fair trial in the International Court of
Justice? We discuss how they argued it,
how they supported their arguments, and
then we apply it. We have here a certain
legal challenge and your constitution.
OK, maybe the Nigerian constitution is
too big for this court, they cannot read
or write in English, so they don’t understand what we are saying about the
constitution. So maybe we look to the
Qu’ran. Or maybe what we look to is a
Hadith. Is there any issue of fair trial in
any of the Hadith? We found it. So it’s a
process of thinking big and then coming
back to the language they understand.
But let me sound a note of caution with
respect to finance. I think a lot of this
cannot be done without resources, especially financial resources, but this could
also be our downfall. A huge downfall,
and I can give you an example. In cases
across the north, especially in one prison,
we had over 200 cases that were awaiting
trial on Shariah grounds. An NGO came
and got a lawyer. In the meantime, because we don’t have the resources, but we
wanted to get the women out of prison—
maybe 100 or 150 of them—we get them
out of prison with less than a hundred
dollars. Usually when we get them, we
appeal, we file the papers, we pay for the
papers, maybe a dollar or so, we sign the
papers and appeal the case. Not more
than a dollar. We go argue the case, we
don’t need time to prepare it, and the
moment the judges set bail, that is the
end of the case. But these foreign donors
that gave funds for this NGO wanted to
use all the money that they gave them.
The NGO will also have to prove that they
spent the money. So they went and they
got a lawyer, and they paid him, for one
case, 250,000 naira, equivalent to $1,000
or thereabout.
Now, the lawyer that we got that was helping us with these other cases, who wasn’t
paid a single dime, he’s experienced, he’s
from the same region as the prison, he
was a former magistrate. And the NGO
hired a man that is much his junior, and
this younger lawyer went around saying
how he was well paid by the NGO to do
that one case. So our lawyer came to us
and said, “Hauwa, you came to me and
said we have no money. I started this
case, I took about 11 or how many cases
now? Then you went behind me and got a
younger lawyer to come and insult me in
court!” And we lost him.
Now the point I’m saying is that international people may not know this, and
there may be good will going in. And I do
agree with this policy of pumping money
into the system because we have so many
people who want to get their freedom.
But we can’t afford to have just one case!
It’s not possible. But they wanted just
to use up that resource. Another thing I
have discovered is that the overhead of a
lot of these NGOs is much more than the
real money that’s useful to cases. If you
look at a budget, you have an overhead of
80 percent of a budget. It doesn’t make
sense that only 20 percent is spent in
useful ways. So my sense is the corruption that we speak about, it’s not only in
government, it’s all over us, even around
us in what we do. I think foreign money could cause us some challenges. We
should identify how it can effectively
help.
[end]
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the boisi center interview: hauwa ibrahim
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